Good little fellow in flight 205

  The young man, who looked like he was only fifteen or sixteen years old, had rosy lips and white teeth, with a faint layer of down on his upper lip. He seemed to be well taken care of, probably the son of a wealthy family. However, this young man's behavior was quite rough, lying diagonally on the bed in the cabin, covering himself with a quilt, and as soon as he woke up, he showed off a lively and arrogant attitude. When he saw Liu Ziguang come in, he casually waved his hand, gesturing for Liu to sit down.

  "Is it you who saved me?" The young man asked casually, with a mouthful of Nanjing dialect.

  Liu Ziguang wasn't a man who stood on ceremony, and he sat down beside him without hesitation, answering with equal nonchalance: "It's me. You're pretty good at flying in the sky, but unfortunately, your swimming skills are a bit lacking."

  "I, Hong Fu Qitian, won't die easily, but since you saved me, I'll still reward you with something." He rummaged through his wet clothes and pulled out a pale green object, tossing it to Liu Ziguang.

  Liu Ziguang caught it and took a closer look, what a fine piece of flawless emerald jade pendant, the entire body was a deep green without any impurities, on the circular jade pendant was an exquisite phoenix carved in relief, with meticulous craftsmanship, every single feather was intricately carved. It looked like it was worth a lot. Liu Ziguang held it up to the bright light outside the porthole to check the translucency of the jade, which was quite good, and there were no impurities inside either.

  "I'd be rude if I didn't." Liu Ziguang put the jade away with satisfaction and asked the flying youth, "Your family's attendants must be getting anxious; shall I arrange a small boat to send you ashore?"

  "No rush, judging from the sound, this is a paddle steamer, right? Bring me a set of dry clothes, I want to take a look at the steam engine." The young man didn't seem to consider himself an outsider at all. Liu Ziguang called over a groom and asked him to bring over a clean set of clothes. Before long, the groom brought in a set of clothes and left. Liu Ziguang also got up to leave the cabin to let the young man change his clothes, but the young man looked surprised and said: "Why isn't anyone helping me get dressed?"

  Liu Ziguang's nose was almost crooked, and this young master was really impolite. He actually wanted someone to serve him and help him change clothes. Liu immediately retorted: "These are all rough people on the boat, they don't know how to serve people, you'd better dress yourself." The young man had no choice but to wave his hand and let Liu Ziguang go out, and then he dressed himself.

  Liu Ziguang shrugged and left, without seeing the young man crawling out from under the quilt, wearing a bright yellow pair of pajama pants.

  As they arrived on the deck, they saw a fast boat had already docked beside their ship. It turned out that the flying youth's attendants had arrived, and four pale-faced, beardless servants politely thanked everyone before hurrying into the cabin to help the young man get dressed.

  After a good half day, the young man finally dressed up and walked out of the cabin. At this time, the steamship had already started firing up, and the young man's fast boat was following behind. Although the young man was still young, he was already quite tall, but rather thin. Fortunately, the clothes in ancient times were all large-sized, so wearing Liu Ziguang's clothes looked quite decent.

  The young man wanted to go down to the engine room to take a look, and Liu Ziguang had never seen the steam engine on the ship before, so he accompanied him down. The engine room was at the bottom of the ship, connected to the coal bunker, with polluted air and scorching heat everywhere, extremely dirty and unpleasant. Generally, high-ranking crew members rarely came down here. However, the young man was very interested and didn't mind the filthy environment at all, touching and looking around everywhere. The shirtless stoker was shoveling coal into the furnace, opening and closing the fire door repeatedly. Liu Ziguang watched for a while but found it uninteresting and was about to leave when he heard the young man speak: "It looks like this steam engine is from Ligu Iron Factory, with high reliability, thick and durable boiler walls and pipes. However, it's too heavy, which affects the ship's speed. In comparison, the steam engines from Wuchang Shipyard are just the right size and much lighter than those from Ligu Factory. So, for civilian ships, it's better to use Wuchang's, but for military purposes, Ligu's is still better due to its high reliability."

  It turns out he was still a science boy, very familiar with everything flying in the sky and running in the water.

  After checking in the cabin, the two returned to the deck. The young man's entourage was moving the damaged large kite onto their speedboat. Liu Ziguang curiously asked: "Is this triangular wing aircraft designed by you?"

  "What, you call it a triangular wing flyer? That name makes sense. I call it the Flying Heavenly Wing, isn't that a great name? Not bad, this divine object was personally designed and made by me, does sir have any advice?" The young man replied.

  "The flying wing, the name is very cool, but without power and relying solely on airflow to propel it, it's a bit too backward. If you add a propeller, it would be better." Liu Ziguang still admired the science boy for his sincere and forward-thinking opinion.

  "What is a propeller?" The young man was somewhat perplexed.

  "It's just something that can keep spinning, driven by a machine, blowing air backwards, and your flying wings can take you wherever you want to go. For example, from Nanjing to Yangzhou." Liu Ziguang has never eaten pork, only seen pigs run, but his description is quite vivid.

  When encountering scientific problems, the boy's eyes lit up immediately, grasping Liu Ziguang to draw out the spiral propeller diagram and express his creativity.

  It just so happened that next to them was the white paper and charcoal pen that Peng Jingrong had used to draw the flying god's wings earlier. Chang followed with a wooden board, holding it for Liu Ziguang to paint. The Peng sisters also gathered around, curiously watching Liu Ziguang draw a picture of the flying boy.

  Seeing so many people gathered around, Liu Ziguang also wanted to show off, so he rummaged through his mind and brought out the sketching skills he had learned at the youth palace when he was a kid. He first drew a triangular wing, then below it, he drew something similar to a bicycle, but without wheels. Instead, it used foot pedals to drive a large spiral propeller behind it. The pedals, chain, gears and human power transmission were all included in the design, although it wasn't very detailed - just a rough sketch. But for a genius like him, even such a simple sketch was enough. The eyes of the young people around him had already become extremely eager.

  Liu Ziguang smiled slightly and drew a larger triangular wing with an active tail wing that could control the direction, below which was a cockpit and engine compartment, driven by two propellers. Next to it, he also drew a small person as a size reference. Afraid that the young man wouldn't understand, he also wrote a text explanation: spring-driven or motor-driven.

  The boy's eyes all turned green, shining with a greedy light like wolves, and asked urgently: "I understood the first one, I can do it when I go back, the mainspring drive is just like the mainspring in the clock, but I'm afraid it can't provide power continuously. What is an engine? How does it get its power?"

  The young man knew a lot, and Liu Ziguang patted him on the shoulder with a nod of approval. In a tone reminiscent of a scientific old man, he said: "An engine is like a steam engine, but it burns fuel that has higher energy density and is cleaner, without any waste residue. The machine's volume is much smaller than a steam engine, and it works by burning fuel inside the machine and directly converting the heat energy released into mechanical power. It's not as cumbersome as a steam engine, which relies on fuel to boil water into steam for power. Internal combustion engines are most commonly reciprocating piston type. The piston-type internal combustion engine mixes fuel and air in its cylinder, burns it, and releases high-temperature and high-pressure gas. The expanding gas pushes the piston to do work, and then outputs mechanical energy through a crankshaft or other mechanisms to drive the driven machine to work.

  Load a box of fuel, such as alcohol or gasoline. You know what alcohol is, it's high-purity strong liquor that ignites with just a spark. Gasoline is even more potent, but currently there isn't the technology to refine it yet. A single box of fuel can take you flying very far, and this Flying Heaven Wing can be made much larger, enlarged many times over, so it can seat several hundred people. For long-distance travel or sudden raids on an enemy nation's capital, rapid maneuverability is simply divine."

  The young man was completely taken in by Liu Ziguang's words, his face flushed with excitement. He had heard so many new terms - internal combustion engine, gasoline, and of course, it would save a lot of space and weight by eliminating the need for steam. This simple logic he could understand, but what struck him most was that this thing called an internal combustion engine, once invented, would be a huge leap forward.

  The young man suddenly became serious and bowed his head, saying he wanted to make Liu Ziguang his master. This startled Liu Ziguang, who was still a bit muddled in the brain and couldn't think carefully about it. Besides, he had so many things on his mind, how could he spare the thought to be someone's teacher? He hastily declined, saying he had urgent matters at hand and couldn't delay, and could only thank the young man for his kindness.

  The young man did not press the issue further, looked around at everyone and said: "You are all here on business in the capital, aren't you?"

  "Yes, we have some trivial matters at the Ministry of War." Liu Ziguo replied, which was not a secret and didn't need to be concealed.

  "Alright, we'll meet again someday." The young man was about to leave, and Liu Ziguang didn't bother to see him off, simply saying "I won't send you far." He watched as the young man boarded his family's speedboat with his entourage, carrying his Flying Heaven God Wing. The boatmen used bamboo poles to push off, and both sides waved goodbye. The young man glanced at the iron factory flag on the bow of the ship and nodded thoughtfully.

  After parting ways, Tie's ship had already approached the Shuixi Gate.

  The formal name of Shuixi Gate is San Shan Men, one of the thirteen city gates of Nanjing Ming City Wall. Like Zhu Baomen (now Zhonghua Gate) and Tongji Gate, it has three layers of wall and four gateways. It is the most important gate on the west side of Nanjing City, facing Qinhuai River, making it a key passage for entering and leaving Nanjing by waterway.

  After all, the city wall of Beijing is majestic and towering, while the city wall of Tiechang can only be regarded as a toy for children to play with in comparison.

  Seeing Liu Ziguang's shocked expression, the eldest sister came to popularize common sense for him: "The city wall of the capital is 68 miles long and is the largest city in China today. After the founding emperor Taizu conquered Nanjing, he began building the city wall in the second year, using 21 years to build this longest city wall in the world, with a height of 5-7 zhangs (about 16-23 meters), base width of 5.5 zhangs (about 18 meters), and top width of 2.3 zhangs (about 7.6 meters). There are 13,660 six-hole embrasures, 200 hidden soldier caves, and 13 city gates that can be attacked and defended. It is said that during the construction, granite was used as the foundation, and tung oil, glutinous rice juice, and lime juice were poured into the brick seams, making it extremely strong. I'm afraid even the Qing army's giant cannons couldn't easily break such a strong city."

  After listening to the introduction of the big sister, Liu Ziguang was even more shocked. The endless city walls, the majestic Yangtze River, and the dense ships on the river, Nanjing, the capital of the Ming Dynasty, I'm here!